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MGH Hotline 01/07/11 She’s less than a week old, but Mary Meredith Jones is already making history. In addition to being one of Boston’s first babies of the new year, she also is the first baby born during MGH’s third century.

Oh, baby!

MGH celebrates first babies of bicentennial year

07/Jan/2011

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: The Jones family with Slavin

She’s less than a week old, but Mary Meredith Jones is already making history. In addition to being one of Boston’s first babies of the new year, she also is the first baby born during MGH’s third century.

While Mary is her official first name, parents Jennifer and Christopher Jones of Woburn, Mass., plan to call her by her middle name, Meredith. They are delighted at the birth of their second child, and their first child, 2-year-old Margaret, is just as excited to be a big sister.

Meredith was delivered Jan. 1 at 5:03 am by Sean Pocock, MD, MPH, a physician for MGH Vincent Obstetrics and Gynecology, and weighed 7 pounds and 11.5 ounces. In celebration of Meredith’s important part of hospital history, Peter L. Slavin, MD, MGH president, presented the Jones family with a $200 savings bond and a gift basket of bicentennial-themed baby goods.

“We are so pleased that Meredith and her family were able to provide us with such a happy start to our 200th year,” says Slavin.

The first baby boy born at the MGH in 2011 is Justin Leeds, who was born at 6:45 am weighing 7 pounds and 5.6 ounces. He is the third child of Scott and Taryn Leeds of Tewksbury, Mass. Stacey Kabat, RN, Vincent Obstetrics nurse, presented the family with a gift basket in honor of his being the first bicentennial boy born at the MGH. The Leeds family has had a close relationship with the hospital over the years, as their daughter Olivia was once a patient at MassGeneral Hospital for Children’s Pediatric Hematology-Oncology Unit. Her cancer is now in remission.

The acknowledgement of the MGH’s bicentennial babies is the first of many bicentennial activities and events planned for 2011. For more information about the MGH’s 200th anniversary, visit www.massgeneral.org/bicentennial.